


a slower warmth

by viscrael



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Intimacy, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Short, uhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 07:03:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12765675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viscrael/pseuds/viscrael
Summary: Genji had not expected to still enjoy contact with other people as much as he does. He has always been a very physical, people-oriented person, but he’d thought that the part of himself in need of satiating had died with the rest of his old identity, with his physical form. But it seems it has only been lying dormant, because he leans into Zenyatta’s palm and he is as close to the other as he can get and it is still too far apart.





	a slower warmth

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this a uhhhhh considerable while ago and planned on making it a series of small scenes involving first-touches for genyatta (first hug, first kiss, etc) but then i lost inspo and life got hectic and i just never finished it. since i doubt i Will ever finish it, i decided to just . upload it as it is
> 
> enjoy some sweet bois

Zenyatta’s mechanic hands are hesitant as they reach forward. He is being cautious, maybe overly so, and it feels like minutes before his fingertips, padded and unexpectedly rough, meet Genji’s cheek.

Neither of them says anything. Since Zenyatta does not need to breathe, even that sound is taken from Genji, leaving him only in the silence with his own rapid heartbeat. His attention flickers between the odd sensation against his scarred flesh and the person in front of him. Nobody has ever touched these scars, save him, and Zenyatta knows this; this is why he is so gentle, so hesitant, so careful.

“Are you alright, Genji?” Zenyatta asks suddenly, although he speaks in such a way that the breach of silence doesn’t startle Genji. His voice is like that. Calming no matter what. Soothing, like a warm cup of tea or silk against skin. The mechanic undertone does nothing to distract from it, either. If anything, it adds to the reassurance somehow.

The fingertips against his cheek start to retract. Before Genji can think about what he’s doing, his hand has shot up and grabbed onto Zenyatta’s wrist, holding him in place. “No, I’m fine. You…it was fine. I’m alright.”

Zenyatta doesn’t have expressions with which to look concerned, but Genji can tell in the way he holds his shoulders back but keeps his hand where Genji holds it, his head turned slightly to the side like he’s examining Genji somehow, that he doesn’t believe that.

“I’m fine,” Genji repeats again, feeling the skepticism, the earnest worry. “Only…restless. That’s all. Don’t worry about me.”

He lets go of the hand he’d held, but Zenyatta doesn’t take it away then, either. He looks as if he’s about to back off again but pauses with his hand in the air and instead returns to cupping Genji’s cheek. The metal is cold. Only the tips of his fingers and his palms have sensors that are soft to touch—as soft as they can be made, anyway—so the rest of his hand is freezing metal, matching the snow on the ground outside Genji’s window.

“You are restless,” Zenyatta repeats. There is an implicit question there, a _why is that_? But he doesn’t voice it for reasons Genji isn’t sure of. Maybe to preserve the peace between them. Maybe because he knows Genji won’t have a sufficient answer right now. Maybe just to give him a break. Either way, they lapse back into silence, and Genji leans into the hand cupping his cheek. Now that he has gotten used to the metal, it isn’t as cold or uncomfortable as he thought it was. It’s nice, actually.

That’s the odd part. Genji had not expected to still enjoy contact with other people as much as he does. He has always been a very physical, people-oriented person, but he’d thought that the part of himself in need of satiating had died with the rest of his old identity, with his physical form. But it seems it has only been lying dormant, because he leans into Zenyatta’s palm and he is as close to the other as he can get and it is still too far apart.

Zenyatta’s warmth is not the same as human warmth. It has been years since Genji touched another human for a reason that wasn’t to harm, but he remembers it still. The way the heat spread across every inch, how you didn’t feel it until you were pressed impossibly close. Zenyatta is not like that. He has points of heat, blips in the map of his body, that are a slower, simmering kind of warmth, but the kind that you feel even before he touches you. Even with his fingers hovering over Genji’s cheek, Genji had been able to feel it, and it is here now, against the rough, ugly skin of his face, from which Zenyatta has never flinched.

This is one of a handful of times that Genji has ever forgone his mask around another person, and the first time he has let someone touch him. Even the first time he showed himself, Zenyatta never seemed taken aback, never gasped or looked away hurriedly or seemed disgusted. He only sat there, his hands folded in his lap, and thanked Genji for allowing himself to be so vulnerable. “I truly appreciate you sharing this with me, Genji,” he had said.

Now, he says, “This is alright?”

Genji can’t imagine why he would think it _isn’t_ alright. The hand cupping his cheek shifts slightly, and the skin he had just covered tingles with want of that contact again. He nods.

He tilts his head into the hand again.

**Author's Note:**

> i love fluff for these 2 . so much


End file.
